Improvements in bottomside electron density definition in the Autoscala program

Abstract

Some improvements introduced in the Autoscala program are presented. They include improvements in E valley modeling of the electron density profile Ne(h), and in the link between the E valley and bottom-side F regions. An abrupt variation in Ne(h) generated by the previous version of Autoscala under night conditions has been eliminated. A series of ionograms recorded by the Millstone Hill digisonde (42.6°, 288.5°) were automatically interpreted by the previous version of Autoscala and by the new one. Data from Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) were used to comparatively assess the performance of the two versions. For this purpose, the root mean square errors (RMSEs) of the Ne(h) provided by Autoscala were calculated relative to the corresponding values provided by ISR. A more accurate overall modeling of Ne(h) was achieved by the new Autoscala version (RMSE = 0.51 MHz for the new version against RMSE = 0.67 MHz for the previous one).